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Alexander Hamilton

Just three years before the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton was an illegitimate orphan working in the Virgin Islands as a merchant's clerk. At 15-years-old he wrote a letter that changed his life. He described a hurricane that had hit many Caribbean islands and this letter was eventually published it in the local newspaper. Some local businessmen were so impressed by this young writer that they donated money to help him go to New York City and enroll in King’s College (now Columbia University). Soon after arrival in New York, he joined the war in the Continental Army. Hamilton held his first important public office (colonel on George Washington's staff) when he was 20 years old, and retired from his last one (Inspector General of the army) when he was 43. He then suffered a spectacular death—shot in a duel by the Vice President of the United States.